


Us Against the World

by agoodpersonrose



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Canon Compliant, Communication, David Rose Loves Patrick Brewer, Domestic, Episode Related, Episode: s05e01 The Crowening, Flufftober, Flufftober 2020, Holding Hands, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:48:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26619985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agoodpersonrose/pseuds/agoodpersonrose
Summary: Sometimes in relationships you have to ask for what you want, and sometimes what you want is something as simple as a hand to hold.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 11
Kudos: 161





	Us Against the World

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:**
> 
> Holding hands

“Oh my _God,_ stop talking,” David groans, throwing his pillow over his face and digging his head into his mattress in a feeble attempt to escape the teasing tone of his sister.

“It’s not a big deal, David!”

David tries to reply but his answer is largely muffled by the sheets covering his face, and he has no interest in removing himself from his blankets.

“I just think that it’s really great that you and Patrick worked everything out yesterday. I mean, he seemed pretty upset about the whole inventory thing, but I guess he doesn’t mind that you two aren’t like, a normal couple.”

Okay, that’s crossing a line. David sits up and throws his pillow off to one side, fixing his sister with a furious glare.

“Excuse me, what do you mean by that?” he hisses.

Alexis is unphased, drifting around the room in a breezy state, throwing items into a bag or whatever she does in the morning. “I just mean that you aren’t like, a normal couple. You’re not like, affectionate with each other.”

“How- How would you know how affectionate we are?” David asks, screwing his nose up at even the vague notion of sharing areas of his sex life with his sister.

“Ugh, David. I mean you don’t like, kiss a lot when you’re around people. And you never hold hands.”

“We never--”

“I really didn’t think you’d be making such a big deal out of this. I was just trying to pay you a compliment.”

David opens and closes his mouth in shock for a while, but he can’t come up with a thing to say in response.

“Anyway, I have to go, Ted is coming to pick me up so that we can go to this like, apple picking farm in Elm Glen. I would invite you and Patrick, but I assume you’ll still be doing _inventory_ ,” Alexis says with a sly grin just revealing itself in the corner of her cheeks.

“Actually--”

A knock at the door interrupts them, and David lets out a small swear, rushing to grab the clothes he had laid out the night before and rushing to the bathroom. He changes and does the bare minimum of his morning routine in record time before throwing himself back out into the motel room and laying eyes on Patrick, just standing up from where he had been sat on the bed and smiling at David’s approach.

“Sorry, I’m ready,” David says, just slightly breathless but unwilling to risk frustrating his boyfriend any further after the embarrassing ‘generator’ conversation they had had the day before.

Patrick opens his mouth to respond but his lips are taken up by a firm, wanting kiss before he gets the chance. “Good morning,” he rasps in a low voice as they separate, his big brown eyes blinking in surprised delight. David takes a moment to enjoy the sight before turning back to Alexis with a judgemental look.

She just smirks and wiggles a finger at him as she passes the pair on her way to the door. “See you at the barbecue tonight boys,” she coos even as David glares at her as the door swings shut behind her.

He isn’t long distracted however as Patrick hitches his arms around David’s waist and pulls him closer. “Am _I_ invited to this barbecue?” he asks teasingly, knowing full well that David had already reluctantly asked him to come just a few days ago.

“I have no idea why you would want to voluntarily spend time with those carnies around an open flame, but yes,” David replies, letting the tension melt out of his shoulders as Patrick rubs slow, firm circles into his lower back, their eyes never breaking contact. “You are invited to this one.”

“Good to know,” Patrick murmurs, wrinkling his nose in the teasing way he does when he’s fondly amused by something David has said. “Now, are we ready to get started on the inventory that we missed yesterday afternoon?”

David pulls out of his embrace with a scowl, pulling his black sweatshirt down to straighten it up and grabbing his bag from the side. “I already apologised for that, thoroughly, and I will not be doing it again.”

“You’ll _never_ be doing it again?” Patrick asks, following behind with an exaggerated concerned expression.

“Nope, you’ll have to suck yourself off from now on.”

Having reached the car, David jiggles the handle a few times and looks up in frustration to find Patrick blushing and staring back at the motel where Johnny Rose has emerged, looking embarrassed from seemingly overhearing their conversation.

“Hi, Mr Rose,” Patrick stutters out, looking similarly uncomfortable.

“Good morning Patrick. I assume I will be seeing you at the barbecue tonight?” Johnny asks, clearly trying to move swiftly on from the awkward tension.

“Of course, we’re both really looking forward to it.”

“And David, you will also be-- coming?” he asks, turning to his son and swallowing, his eyebrows dancing in distress the longer the conversation continues.

“Yes,” David breathes out, tugging more anxiously on the car door and glaring over at Patrick who still has yet to open it. “We will both be there.”

“Well, that’s good. I’d better let you get on, lots of things you’d rather be doing I’m sure.”

David finally hears the click of Patrick’s key signalling that he has unlocked the car, but he lingers just a moment longer, looking at his father with a frown. “Are you going to be okay today?” he asks with an awkward expression.

“Yes, yes. Just fine, you know. I called your mother yesterday morning so. I’m sure I’ll hear from her again soon. Anyway, there’s lots to keep me busy until she gets back, lots to do around here.”

David nods, pursing his lips in disbelief but not pushing the topic. “Well, if you need anything then I guess you could come down the store for a while and-- you know,” he gestures at the general air with his hands but Johnny nods, clearly getting the gist.

“I know, you let me know if _you_ need anything won’t you son?”

“Um, sure. So, I’ll see you later I guess.”

David finally climbs into the car and huffs as he settles into the passenger seat. There is silence for a moment, and he turns to find Patrick already looking at him with wide, expressive eyes.

“What?” he asks with a put-upon sigh.

“Nothing,” Patrick replies easily, turning the engine on and putting his hand along the back of David’s seat to look out the back window as he reverses. His fingers just slightly brush the back of David’s neck as he does so, sending shivers down his spine that he tries hard to suppress but likely fails if Patrick’s pleased smirk has anything to do with it. “You know--” Patrick starts to say, but David holds a hand up to stop him.

“Not a word,” he says firmly even as the corners of his mouth turn up in barely repressed amusement.

“Alright,” Patrick accepts and focuses back on the road.

The day passes quickly; both David and Patrick are kept on their feet as they switch between inventory and front of the store roles. It simultaneously feels like no time has passed at all and that they have been there for days by the time they are flipping the sign closed and finishing off the closing chores.

“I have a question for you,” Patrick interrupts their silence as they work on their jobs. David looks up from the sweeping with a raised eyebrow and nods. “I know you apologised for yesterday, and that’s not what I’m asking I just-- were you really concerned?”

David huffs and looks down at his hands in feigned disinterest. “I wasn’t concerned I just. Sometimes I worry about how our relationship might come across to other people and I-- There are some things that I maybe, perhaps, have been wanting to do and it has kind of been weighing on me and I think I got distracted by that. And Alexis didn’t help either because she was doing that thing where she winds me up on purpose and then she pouts as if she’s sorry, but she’s not _actually_ sorry, and-- yes?”

He finally cuts off his little tirade as Patrick waves a hand at him to get his attention.

“Like what?”

“Well she just goes like--” David pouts his lips and flops his hands in front of him to try and imitate his sisters’ classic fake sympathy expression but stops when he catches Patrick laughing.

“No, I just-- I mean what things have you been wanting to do?”

“Oh.” David straightens up immediately, his face flushing red as he rubs his hand on his forehead in embarrassment. “Well I-- It’s not really a big deal. I told you yesterday I love our relationship.”

“What things David?” Patrick repeats, his eyebrows rising slightly in a way which displays that he means business. David feels a thrill at the expression and bites his lip in response, a move that doesn’t go unnoticed by Patrick who just smirks and waits patiently behind the counter for his answer.

“Like, I don’t know, kissing!” David exclaims, flustered from the pressure of his boyfriend’s stare.

“Do I not kiss you enough?” Patrick asks, approaching him slowly and putting his hands on David’s arms, holding him steady and making him squirm all the more.

“I mean like, in public. Like, we don’t really do stuff in public,” David tries to explain.

“So, this is like, a sex thing?”

“What? No!” David practically yells, his cheeks scarlet as he rolls his eyes. “I just mean that when we pass people in the street, they never know that we’re a couple, and that doesn’t bother me usually, but sometimes I just, I think maybe it could be nice if we were more-- obvious, about things.”

At this explanation, Patrick’s expression goes deadly serious. “I understand,” he says, and for a moment David worries that he is angry about it, but the kiss he gives him in response suggests otherwise.

The conversation is dropped for the rest of the afternoon. The pair head straight from the store back to the motel where the beginnings of a family barbecue have already been set up. David flounders a bit getting out of the car, and by the time he’s clambered off his seat, Patrick has beaten him round to meet him at his door.

“What are you--?” David starts to ask, but the sentence falls from his mouth as Patrick simply reaches out a hand and clasps his.

It’s not that they have never held hands before, but suddenly David is hyper aware of every point of contact between his smooth, manicured fingertips, and Patrick’s slightly rough palms. He shivers as their skin brushes and Patrick tightens his grip, simultaneously stabling him and also making him feel light and floaty in the mid-afternoon sun.

“Are you two gonna come and join us or are you just gonna stand there making doe-eyes at each other while I eat your sliders?” Stevie shouts from where she is manning the barbecue, an anxious looking Johnny Rose constantly hovering around her shoulder.

David is about to reply but Patrick just pulls him forward by the hand, towards the picnic bench where Jocelyn and Roland are sat. Jocelyn immediately grabs them both a drink from the ice box at her feet and hands them over. Patrick takes both, opening them quickly before placing them on the table and reaching over to take David’s hand again, a small, pleased smirk on his face as David just watches him with wide eyes.

The Schitt’s don’t seem to notice anything different as they natter away about the meat that is cooking, but David is unable to drag his eyes away from their intertwined hands, just resting on the table in plain sight. Their skin tones differ in so many ways, and David is entranced by the contrasting appearance of their hands tied together so tightly.

Patrick looks over and catches his eye, a small, private smile on his face as he pulls their joint hands up to his mouth and presses a kiss to the back of David’s knuckles. He places them carefully back down and returns to the conversation, his thumb rubbing constant patterns onto David’s sensitive skin.

“--and I said to him, I said look, Johnny, you can’t go taking another man’s jobs otherwise somebody will be taking yours!” Roland is saying through a mouthful of potato salad. “I mean, would you like it, Dave, if your Dad was tucking you into bed one night and you looked up to see my face?”

David zones back into the conversation with a look of pure disgust on his face. “I’m sorry, you think my Dad tucks me into bed at night?”

“Well it’s just an expression, but--”

“No! No it is not, that’s--” David cuts off as he feels Patrick squeeze his hand in silent support, he looks away from Roland and back towards his boyfriend, already feeling all the tension draining out of his body from that singular point of connection.

“You know what, Roland, you spent half an hour today telling me how much of a grill-meister you were going to be but I’m not seeing any actual grilling happening!” Johnny shouts from the barbecue.

“That’s my _grill,_ ” Roland stands from the table with a sly grin, heading over to where David has finally noticed his father’s apron; a pink frilly number with the words _‘Poor Little Rich Grill’_ bedazzled in jewels on the front.

He screws his face up but stays silent. Patrick snorts next to him at the sight as he takes a swig from his beer bottle and places it back on the table, all the while using his left hand which hasn’t gone unnoticed by David who turns to him as the Schitt’s step away with a small grin.

“You don’t have to do all this, you know,” he says, holding their connected hands aloft and gesturing at them.

“I know,” Patrick replies easily but he turns towards David with a serious expression. “I know you love our relationship; I’m not concerned about that in any way. And you know I love it as well, but that doesn’t mean we still can’t ask for things that we want.”

David sucks his lips between his teeth and nods as the delight settles in his chest.

“So, for example, if I asked that you maybe arrived at the store a little earlier in the mornings, maybe even, God forbid, when we open at eight. Then maybe that could also be something that could be arranged.”

“Mm,” David hums, nodding as if in agreement as he leans in to press a kiss against his boyfriend’s lips. “Not gonna happen, that one, I don’t think.”

Patrick makes an exaggerated sound of disappointment but the smile on his face ruins the effect. Most of all, the way he squeezes at David’s hand almost absent mindedly in response to their conversation makes clear his feeling of content, and David feels it too, so he squeezes right back.

**Author's Note:**

> I definitely forgot about the prompt halfway through writing this because I got so distracted but I brought it back around in the end I hope. 
> 
> Also if someone could please make me that apron for Christmas I would be eternally grateful. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! 🤝


End file.
